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Posts Tagged ‘Healthy’

What is 5-HTP?
The Griffonia Extract is rich 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), which originated from the African plant, Griffonia simplicifolia seed, and contain 30% of 5-HTP. 5-HTP is an amino acid which is a direct precursor of serotonin, an important neurotransmitter having pain soothing and relaxing effect. 5-HTP is not present in significant quantities in a typical diet. The human body manufactures 5-HTP from L-tryptophan, an amino acid found in most dietary proteins. However, food is food that contains L-tryptophan does not significantly increase the concentration of 5-HTP.

5-HTP and serotonin
5-HTP is a precursor to serotonin. It improves mood, anxiety and useful in weight loss. 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP) is an amino acid which is an intermediate step between tryptophan and the important brain chemical serotonin. There is a large body of evidence that low levels of serotonin common consequence of modern life. Lifestyle and dietary practices of people in a stressful era results in lowered levels of serotonin are free.

5-HTP and Carb Cravings
The researchers believe that inadequate serotonin levels are partly responsible for the desire to overeat. Not surprisingly, obese individuals who crave carbohydrates usually show abnormally low levels of serotonin. With 5-HTP supplement half an hour before meals “off” to the desire and hunger by feeding the brains carbohydrate satiety center. In this way 5-HTP can be a great advantage as part of a weight loss regime.

5-HTP and Addiction
The use of addictive substances such as tobacco, alcohol, caffeine and certain drugs, increase serotonin levels. When these substances are eliminated, serotonin levels decrease dramatically, causing fear and desire. In 5-HTP can stabilize serotonin levels and to minimize withdrawal symptoms.

5-HTP and PMS
PMS sufferers report pain relief, and reduced irritability and mood swings from using 5-HTP. This supplement works against the hormone-induced reduction in serotonin levels that occur naturally during menstruation.

5-HTP and sleep
Through a calming effect, many rely on 5-HTP to alleviate stress-attacks, as well as to promote sound sleep. Unlike sedative drugs, 5-HTP with no unwanted side effects such as insomnia or fatigue-related. It can be taken 1 hour before a regular bedtime as a cure for insomnia.

Side Effects
A very high intake of 5-HTP have caused muscle jerks in guinea pigs and both muscle jerks and diarrhea in mice. Injected 5-HTP also causes kidney damage in rats. For now this issue has not been reported in humans. “Serotonin syndrome”, a rare but serious illness caused by excessive amounts of serotonin, has not been reported to result from supplementation with 5-HTP in theory it can be triggered by the addition. However, the level of fixed income, which can occur in potentially toxic effects are not known.

Warning
5-HTP should not be with antidepressants, weight control drugs, other serotonin-modifying agents or substances that are known to cause liver damage taken, because in this case 5-HTP may have excessive effects. People with liver disease can not set enough to be 5-HTP and those who suffer from autoimmune diseases such as scleroderma may be more sensitive than others, to 5-HTP. These people do not have 5-HTP without consulting a competent physician. Safety is 5-HTP during pregnancy and lactation are not known at this time.
Conditions with low serotonin levels with 5-HTP supports:
• Depression
• Obesity
• Carbohydrate demand
• Bulimia
• Insomnia
• Narcolepsy
• Sleep Apnea
• Migraine
• Tension headache
• chronic daily headache
Premenstrual syndrome •
• Fibromyalgia

How to exercise for a healthy heart

A healthy heart is without doubt the most important muscle you need for good health and exercise is a great way to obtain it so it is wise to

Know how exercise helps maintain a healthy heart and how it prevents heart attacks.

Know why traditional cardio exercise is not necessarily the best option.

Know how to keep your metabolism high for hours after finishing your exercise program

And

Know why circuit training can burn fat like no other form of training.

The majority of people who start an exercise program do so to improve their appearance by building muscle, losing weight or a combination of the two and there is also a minority of people who exercise with the specific aim of improving their ability in their chosen sport.

What ever gets you training is great in my opinion so there is nothing wrong with training for these reasons, but what you should also remember are the benefits a solid exercise program will have on keeping your heart healthy and the importance this plays in your general well-being.

Regular exercise improves the heart because it is a muscle and just like all muscles if you exercise it regularly it becomes stronger, and a strong healthy heart is probably the single most important factor in preventing disease – In fact it can literally save your life and you can ask no more of any muscle than that.

The reason exercise works to keep your heart healthy is because when you train your heart is required to work harder than normal and therefore pumps more oxygen filled blood throughout your body. This improves your circulation and helps to keep all of your organs and muscles healthy.

The result is your heart becomes stronger and therefore less susceptible to disease which is a great benefit on its own but it gets even better than that because regular exercise will also lower your resting heart rate meaning that it doesn’t have to work as hard to do its job and just like a machine the less it has to work the longer it will last.

If that sounds great just consider for a moment that a very fit athlete can achieve a resting heart rate of 45-50 beats per minute whilst a normal person of the same age will have a resting heart beat of 70 – 75 beats per minute. As you can see the athlete’s heart only has to do two thirds of the work of an average personS which helps maintain a healthy heart.

The more research that is done the more scientists are realizing that the worst thing you can do to for a healthy heart is nothing at all because the fact is, a sedentary life style is a major cause of heart disease and heart attacks. So when it comes to your heart it is a classic case of use it or lose it and you only have to look at the statistics of America to confirm this.

The sedentary or inactive life style that has swept the country has led to heart attacks and coronary disease becoming the number one cause of death and disability in the United States but the sad thing is it doesn’t have to happen if people would only get of their backsides and become more active.

For instance, did you know that a good exercise program will reduce your chances of having a heart attack by as much as 45%? And you also have the other health benefits of exercise to take into consideration such as the reduced risk of developing diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure as well as preventing many other horrible diseases.

So you can see the importance of having a healthy heart and how exercise is crucial to achieving this.

The question that remains is which type of exercise is the best way of improving the condition of your heart and respiratory system? The answer is not as straight forward as one might think because as always in life there are different opinions from different camps.

Some experts say that the best way to achieve a healthy heart is to do some form of aerobic activity at a certain pace for 30 minutes at least four times a week. In fact this has been the standard advice for many years and it is true to a certain extent.

However, some research suggests that this is not the best method for a healthy heart because it will not enable you to maintain a high metabolism for very long after you have finished doing your exercise and you will also lose muscle mass if this is the only training you do.

So what does metabolism and muscle mass have to do with my heart? Well if your metabolism stays higher for a longer period after training like it does with circuit training for example, then you will burn more fat and the less fat you have, the less your heart will have to work to lug you around. The reason muscle mass is important is because the more muscle you have the more calories you will burn to maintain it meaning once again that you will carry less fat.

But this is not the end of the debate because other experts are of the opinion that exercising for short bursts of high intensity followed by short bursts of low intensity such as sprinting for a certain distance, and then gently jogging whist your heart slows down and then sprinting again, is a better way of exercising the heart simply because for a short period your heart has to work a lot harder than it could for a sustained time such as 30 minutes.

The experts who recommend this type of training say the result is a heart that can handle short periods of intense demand when necessary which is a more realistic requirement for every day life. They also say this type of training will keep your metabolism high for many hours after you have finished exercising and so burn more calories.

We are still not finished though because another type of training some say is the best for a healthy heart is circuit training were you go from one exercise to another without stopping, for example, doing a set of press ups then a set of squats then a set of pull ups then a set of squat thrusts and so on. The reasons they give for circuit training being a superior form of exercise is because not only are you maintaining a more or less constant high heart rate, but you are also exercising most of the muscles of your body at the same time which will stop you from losing muscle mass and so burn more fat than the traditional 30 minutes of steady paced cardio.

And finally there is one more type of training that some recommend for a healthy heart and that is traditional progressive weight training with the usual 3 or 4 sets of 10 reps for each exercise.

The reasons given for this being the best type of training for a healthy heart are basic weight training builds up the muscles around the chest and this can help prevent certain heart diseases such as angina, the short bursts of rapid heart rate followed by a minutes rest is good for accustoming your heart to work at a rapid pace if necessary and finally weight training will maintain and build muscle mass which helps control your weight because as mentioned before the more muscle you have the more calories you need to feed it.

So there you have it, as you can see not everybody agrees on the best way to maintain a healthy heart and there are many options to choose from. If you are wondering which is the best type of training for you I would ask you to remember the following points.

The first thing to keep in mind is any exercise is better than none at all, so it is a case of horses for courses. What ever type of exercise you enjoy the most is the one you should do simply because the more fun you have doing it the more likely you are to keep at it

Also be realistic, if you are young and fit there is no reason why you should not do what ever type of training you want. If you are in your late 30s or 40s you can still do the type of training you prefer but you should take things very gradually and build up the intensity of your training very slowly. Remember, if you try to do too much to soon you will almost certainly injure yourself which will either hamper your training or discourage you from continuing, so remember with small steps you can climb mountains.

Finally, if you are in your 50s, 60s or even more mature than you should still exercise, in fact even more so than a younger person but you must be realistic. You are not going to be able to do circuit training with the same intensity as a younger person but you don’t need to because you will benefit by doing what you are safely capable of and staying within those limits.

Conclusion,

The plague of heart attacks and respiratory disease that is rife in many western countries need not happen if people follow the advice of those involved in the medical and health professions. It is a fact that living a sedentary life style is a disaster for a healthy heart and you need to be active what ever your age.

What type of exercise you do is up to you, a combination of some resistance training to maintain muscle mass and some aerobic exercise to get your heart working harder and pumping some oxygen full blood around the body is probably the best advice, but keep in mind anything from gardening to dancing is better than no exercise at all. So it comes down to personal choice, do what makes you happy, but do something – it could save your life -.

Good luck

It is amazing, that during the seventeenth century, garlic was credited with protecting many households from the ravages of the Great Plague. It is great to cook with garlic, while benefiting from it’s wonderful properties. To grow your herbal medicine garden, your potent little health-giver will require a long growing season.

Buy your garlic bulbs as early in the Spring as possible. There should be between 8 to 12 cloves per bulb. Plant the cloves with point up about six inches apart and approximately two inches deep. Allow at least a foot between rows. Garlic likes to grow in moist, sandy soil with mostly sunny conditions. It is important that the soil be moist all the time. Weeds should always be cleared out of the beds.

By late August you should be harvesting your pungent bulbs. After your harvest braid the stalks and hang them up to dry. If you feel garlic is just too strong for your taste try rubbing the clove of a garlic all around the inside of your salad bowl. The garlic oils will mix into the greens. Another gentle approach to benefiting from the garlic is to slice very thin pieces off the clove and add it to soup, while cooking

For those of us who love the taste of garlic try these tips out. When cooking lamb or pork add a few skinned garlic cloves inserted into incisions made in the meat for flavor and tenderness. And, another very yummy treat is to chop up your garlic using about four pulverized garlic cloves and a quarter pound of softened butter, mix. After well mixed, spread on some bread and lay the bread on the top rack of the oven and set to broil. This toasts the top while the underside is soft. Yummy, so good!

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Even if you are professional cook, chef, or you occassionally cook, these 7 simple steps will guide your way through the kitchen and make you happier:

JOY – The joy of doing something, whatever it is, means the chance of transformation into something beatiful that will make you and your close ones happy. I mean that it is always best to do something that you want and feel happy about it, rather than doing it out of obligation
INTUITION – Once you build up your intuition by constant experimenting, you can forget about any books out there. This step is a result of constantly trying new thins in your kitchen. You never know how good a food will taste if you add an extra ingredient without actually adding it, right?
CREATIVITY – Being creative results in putting a little(or more) of your personality in what you are cooking. If you are a person with a bit of creativity it should be no problem for you. For the ones who don’t feel creative enough, don’t think you can’t do it! Just follow your instincts, take a look around your kitchen, there always is something that may inspire you.
CHOOSING – Always look for fresh vegetables and meat in great varieties. The difference between fresh or not so fresh vegetables, fruits and meat will result in the food on your plate. Using fresh ones will add the real flavour of your ingredients. By choosing the not so very fresh ones, you will choose the ones that will not give much flavour, natural vitamins/nutrients. What do you like more, something with flavour or something without a real taste? I think you know the answer to that .
PREPARATION – Never forget to wash the vegetables, fruits and meat very carefully. By washing them carefully, you can assure 3 important things: the ingredients are clean, the taste will be the expected one, a better looking dish. It does not matter where you buy them from, you should always wash them.
COOKING – try to use cooking technics and methods that are simple and not to complicated(the more natural, the better). What do you like more : a 2min dish heated in the microwave, or a plate of baked potatoes with bacon made in the oven with some spices and let’s say o bolognese sauce on top of it? yes, it may take up to 30min cooking time, but the difference is in the taste of the food.
SETTING UP A DISH – The way you set up food on a dish can represent your mood and personality, look for an eye-feast set-up. This last step has to do with creativity too. If you want you can set it up so that it looks like a smiley: take two pieces of orange for the eye-browes, two green olives for the eyes, one piece of lemon for the nose, and 1 thin slice of tomato. Voila! you now have a smiley on your plate. It’s easy as that.

Try to follow these 7 easy steps and you will always be happy with your cooking and your loved ones will be happy too.

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I learned this recipe from my mom, it has been our family favorite for many years. Taken daily for breakfast, this tasty and nutritious “beauty salad” will work from within to make your skin healthy and smooth.

If you are not a big breakfast eater, this is a perfect solution: the salad is light and easily digested, and you only need one relatively small serving that will give your body the necessary “wake up and go” nutrition without making you feel stuffed.

The beauty salad is not difficult to make, but you have to prepare it fresh daily. Of course, doing this requires some time and some discipline; however, the result is well worth the effort, and when you have fallen in the daily routine of making this salad, you will do it on autopilot, quickly and easily.

Pour 1/4 cup of water in a bowl, add two tablespoons of oats and stir. Add one tablespoon of honey and stir in as well. While the oats are soaking in honey water, grate one medium to large apple. I prefer Red of Golden Delicious, but any other kind will work as well. Place grated apple into the bowl, add a handful of chopped walnuts and stir everything together. Enjoy.

You can adjust the taste by adding more honey, making your salad sweeter. More walnuts will make it crunchier and more filling. I like walnuts, so I usually put a lot of them. It is best to eat the salad right away. If you let it sit, the apple will darken; this is normal and it does not take away any of the nutritional value, but it may not look so appealing.

All the ingredients are known for their skin-improving qualities. Fresh apples are recommended to prevent and clear acne, they contain antioxidants, bioflavonoids (water-soluble plant pigments with anti-inflammatory qualities), fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Walnuts have zinc and Vitamin E, both are very good for our skin, plus walnuts oils help to keep the skin hydrated because of linoleic acid they contain. Oats are a known part of clear skin diets, they contain many nutrients including selenium, zinc, magnesium, and Vitamin E. Health and beauty benefits of honey are too numerous to mention, it has been widely used in many cultures both internally and externally. The beauty salad offers a powerful combination of it all that will work great if you use it regularly.

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